Healthy Living: Working Out

This week’s healthy living workshop topic is Working Out because I am currently in mourning.

You see on Sunday, I had to send my first running top to the marathon course in the sky. The elastic had finally disintegrated and the destruction was total.

This top was one of my proud purchases four years ago after I finished my first half-marathon. Up until that point I had been fitnessing in cotton yoga pants and old white camisoles from Express. Not fashionable, but it worked. And I didn’t want to financially commit to gear if I wasn’t sure I was going to wear it.

Even though so much of healthy living really is about diet, I know that there was a certain point in my weight loss journey where I realized it would be impossible for me to lose any more weight if I did not start working out.

Which was really overwhelming because I didn’t even know where to begin. Answer: my apartment had the world’s most tragic excuse of a workout room. An old treadmill, an elliptical machine with a hitch in its stride and a decrepit hot tub that no one ever entered or exited.

When I started exercising, working toward my goal of running a 5k, I decided that if I could train three days a week as my baseline I would be in a good place. It was the minimum amount of time I needed to dedicate to training in order to have success, and I knew that scheduling workouts into the rest of my life wasn’t going to be a totally seamless process (surprise: it wasn’t).

Today, my fitness life looks a little bit different.

Every day, I move. I do a 20 minute yoga practice in the morning on weekdays. Along with some crunches and some girl push-ups.

Seven days a week of cardio. Five days a week of twice-a-day workouts. It sounds…a little intense when I say it that way. But do you know what’s actually intense? Continuing to maintain a 60 pound loss. Fixing a profoundly broken metabolism.

Those first few months, learning how to run, learning what a downward dog was, those were really really hard. Giving up 30-35 minutes in my day (plus the 15 minutes I needed on either end to get ready to workout/get ready to go out) was not easy. However, when I was on that side, I never could have understood how truly good I would feel now.

What I do remember clearly, even at the beginning is that I know I have never, ever regretted a workout. The day I stopped living with excuses was the day that freed me in so many ways.

Yes, there are days when I am busy. Sure, there are days where I am sick. Of course there are days where I am just exhausted. Instead of sitting on the couch, I just keep moving. And for each day that I am able to do this, I am a better person. Not only to myself but also to those around me.

Good for you, Lady. I’m trying to get back into the workout routine – aiming for 4 days/week right now and hoping to bring it closer to 5 or 6 within the next month. Not. Easy. But I know I have to do it to shed the 10lbs that have crept on since I stopped being diligent. Thanks for the motivation to stick with it, stay the course and keep living healthy every single day.